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Ocean Weekend
The first weekend of the Maltese leg of the Art Explora festival, on March 23 and 24, will launch the "Ocean Weekends". In Malta, these two days of programming will be organized in collaboration with the Malta Biennale and curators Sofia Baldi Pighi, Emma Mattei and Andrew Borg Wirth, in partnership with the French Embassy in Valletta. The Ocean Weekend in Valletta will invite the public to a series of round tables, film screenings and inspiring talks, bringing together key speakers from the worlds of art and science around the issue of the oceans' climate emergency.
Dates and times
Address
Xatt Pinto, Valletta Waterfront, Valletta, Malta
Accessibility
Additional Information
PROGRAMME
Saturday, March 23: "The Mediterranean as a political body"
11:00am-12:00pm: Panel
With : Marie Briguglio, Timmy Gambin & Bettina Hutschek
12:00pm-2:00pm: Sound Lunch
An oneiric passage through the realm of ocean dreams by Dolphin Club .
Thesound lunch is a "break" in the day during which music will be played on the site by an artist dealing with the ocean.
2:00pm-3:00pm: Screenings
- All Inclusive by Corina Schwingruber Ilić
- If the Sun Drowned Into an Ocean of Clouds by Wissam Chara
- Unknown Ocean by Dolphin Club
After the screenings, the artists will discuss the impact of the sea on their respective practices.
Emilija Škarnulytė
Sunday, March 24: "The Ocean as an archive
11:00am-12:00pm: Panel
With : Françoise Gaill, deep-sea biologist and president of the Ocean Sustainability Foundation; Andrew Borg Wirth, curator of the Franco-German pavilion; Mariana Hahn , visual and performing artist of the Franco-German pavilion and moderated by Ashok Adicéam, French deputy ambassador for the oceans.
12pm-1:00pm: Sound Lunch
Oceans by Yasmin Kuymizakis (JOON)
JOON is a Maltese music composer, producer, sonic artist and sound designer. 'Sound Lunch' is a break in the itinerary of the day, with music being played across the site from an artist who deals with the subject of the festival — the ocean.
1:00pm-2:00pm: Panel
With : Renata Poljak, Croatian visual artist, Vince Briffa, Associate Professor at the University of Malta, artist and curator, Simon Riccardi-Zani, choreographer and dancer at Żfin Malta and the Franco-German Pavilion. moderated by Gabriel Zammit, Malta-based curator, writer and creative producer.
2:00pm-3:00pm: Screenings
- Intertide by Renzo Spiteri, sound artist, composer and percussionist. ‘Intertide’ is an immersive black and white video work capturing the profound connection between the artist and the sea.
- It Isn't Easy, But It Is by Mariana Hahn, visual artist of the Franco-German pavilion. ‘It isn’t easy but it is’ is a research project in China to track the remains of a late Chinese sisterhood created in the 18th century. Mariana Hahn meets instead with a 95-year-old fisherman who taught her how to make a fishnet.
After the screenings, the artists will discuss the impact of the sea on their respective practices.
15:00-16:00: "Voices" / Taking the floor
Marie Hélène Pereira
Marie Hélène Pereira is a Berlin-based cultural practitioner and curator from Dakar (Senegal) interested in histories of migrations and the politics of identity. She will give a keynote talk on her previous work and ways that it coincides with issues of climate consciousness within artistic practice.
20:30-21:00: "Voices" / Performance
Emilija Škarnulytė
Performance by a Lithuanian artist working between the documentary and the imaginary
21:00 Screening of Divertimento (2022)
French film directed by Marie-Castille Mention-Schaar
Summary At 17, Zahia Ziouani dreams of becoming an orchestra conductor, while her twin sister Fettouma is a professional cellist. Together, they form the Divertimento orchestra. The film is based on a true story.
Lisa Attard
From 2024 to 2025, Ocean Weekends will be held in every stopover of the Art Explora Festival. They will be one of the pillars of its rich and diversified program, reaffirming the project of the boat-museum and its Festival as the forerunner for a new way of sharing art with a large audience, by sea and beyond borders.
The Ocean Weekends will be integrated into the Festival's program, with an 'ocean' focus adapted to local issues in each country. Panel discussions will be held, inviting researchers, scientists and artists to discuss this theme from a local/global perspective. These panels will be accompanied by speeches by inspiring guest speakers, as well as film screenings, broadcasting of sound pieces, workshops with NGOs…
All these elements, which form the Festival's innovative identity, are part of the desire to "mobilize interested actors from around the world around a common framework that will put science at the service of countries in their implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 14 on the ocean" of the United Nations as part of its Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030), which will be honored in Nice in June 2025.
The aim of Ocean Weekends is to contribute to the dissemination of knowledge about the oceans from a transdisciplinary point of view, through a program that is both cutting-edge and accessible to all.
In Malta, Art Explora is collaborating with the Malta Biennale (specifically with Sofia Baldi Pighi and Emma Mattei from the main pavilion and Andrew Borg Wirth from the Franco-German pavilion) for their inaugural Ocean Weekend. Tackling the themes of "the Mediterranean as a body politic" and "the ocean as an archive", the weekend will welcome Maltese and international personalities from transdisciplinary backgrounds, who will speak about oceans, of the ocean and for the ocean.
The artists
